HR is no more considered just an administrative support function. The younger generation corporate workforce with the global learning exposure alongside the presence of different multinational companies and business partnership with foreign companies together has contributed to the demarcation of the HR function with a general administrative function. This has resulted in HR professionals being business partners/leaders for companies from a mere administrative support wing. Companies with strong and independent business partners have tasted business success with their team exceeding the performance bar and the goodwill of the company as an employer skyrocketing.
Subash Shrestha
With the deliverables of the HR department going high, there is now a question of how prepared are the HR professionals on taking the newer, bigger and modern challenges? Not only the business partnership/leadership, with the concept of the global world, new tech-driven practices, agility, automation, and also the unprecedented risks like the Covid-19 pandemic, are the HR professionals skilled and prepared enough to take the challenges? Are they willing to reskill, upskill or cross skill themselves? Alongside the technical side, how much sound they are in terms of behavioral skills? The combination of technical expertise, as well as behavioral strength, is the right formula of success for HR leaders. With that, they must be able to understand and apply contribution towards the organization’s strategic plans, interpret information to make business decisions, and also provide guidance to organizational stakeholders. Considering all the above aspects, let’s take a closer look at the eight must-have HR competencies in the modern context:
HR AWARENESS/EXPERTISE
HR professionals can directly impact the success of any organization. With the policies and practices they develop, the advice they provide, and other job-related contributions, HR leader’s contribution to meet the organizational goal is significant. They can make a major contribution to the organization on its turnover, increased performance, efficiency, and financial control. With major impacts like these, it is extremely important for HR professionals to have a strong HR knowledge base. Their knowledge base will help them meet the deliverables by helping them know what is expected from an HR leader. Their awareness is the reflection of their knowledge base and mindset.
EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP
Effective HR leaders can make a turnaround of any organization. This attribute can help the HR leaders gain more trust and autonomy from the reporting authority and also can disseminate the same to other colleagues. This process will help the below tier of the team to understand things clearly, take calculative risks and make effective decisions. An effective leader can grow many other leaders which ultimately helps an organization to have multiple leaders who all will be fulfilling their responsibilities in a smart and efficient way. Hence, being in the central role of an organization’s business operation, HR professionals need to be leaders with effective decision-making abilities.
HR is no more considered just an administrative support function. The younger generation corporate workforce with the global learning exposure alongside the presence of different multinational companies and business partnership with foreign companies together has contributed to the demarcation of the HR function with a general administrative function. This has resulted in HR professionals being business partners/leaders for companies from a mere administrative support wing. Companies with strong and independent business partners have tasted business success with their team exceeding the performance bar and the goodwill of the company as an employer skyrocketing.
Sudarshan Pathak
With the deliverables of the HR department going high, there is now a question of how prepared are the HR professionals on taking the newer, bigger and modern challenges? Not only the business partnership/leadership, with the concept of the global world, new tech-driven practices, agility, automation, and also the unprecedented risks like the Covid-19 pandemic, are the HR professionals skilled and prepared enough to take the challenges? Are they willing to reskill, upskill or cross skill themselves? Alongside the technical side, how much sound they are in terms of behavioral skills? The combination of technical expertise, as well as behavioral strength, is the right formula of success for HR leaders. With that, they must be able to understand and apply contribution towards the organization’s strategic plans, interpret information to make business decisions, and also provide guidance to organizational stakeholders. Considering all the above aspects, let’s take a closer look at the eight must-have HR competencies in the modern context:
HR AWARENESS/EXPERTISE
HR professionals can directly impact the success of any organization. With the policies and practices they develop, the advice they provide, and other job-related contributions, HR leader’s contribution to meet the organizational goal is significant. They can make a major contribution to the organization on its turnover, increased performance, efficiency, and financial control. With major impacts like these, it is extremely important for HR professionals to have a strong HR knowledge base. Their knowledge base will help them meet the deliverables by helping them know what is expected from an HR leader. Their awareness is the reflection of their knowledge base and mindset.
EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP
Effective HR leaders can make a turnaround of any organization. This attribute can help the HR leaders gain more trust and autonomy from the reporting authority and also can disseminate the same to other colleagues. This process will help the below tier of the team to understand things clearly, take calculative risks and make effective decisions. An effective leader can grow many other leaders which ultimately helps an organization to have multiple leaders who all will be fulfilling their responsibilities in a smart and efficient way. Hence, being in the central role of an organization’s business operation, HR professionals need to be leaders with effective decision-making abilities.
Ethics/Self Discipline: HR professionals are expected to create an ethical HR/organizational culture where self-discipline is a determining factor to enhance performance. Ethics/self-discipline are associated with a higher level of organizational performance. This attribute can serve a company in many ways by helping to eliminate adverse employee behavior. An ethical and self-disciplined HR business leader can create a working environment full of trust and support. It will help to maximize the efficiency of the team and ultimately will result in better organizational performance.
COMPLIANCE:
As ethics and discipline make an HR professional morally compliant, it is important for HR professionals to meet legal compliance. No one should ever undermine the legal provisions. In underdeveloped countries like Nepal, compliance is often neglected under the influence of power. But an HR professional should never go beyond compliance under any influence. This also reflects the company’s social as well as legal responsibility. An HR professional must ensure that the organizational process and policies are legally compliant. They should also ensure to manage a process where all the compliance-related matters are regularly screened and necessary actions are taken on time.
BUSINESS ACUMEN:
HR leaders must be very well versed in terms of their business acumen. This covers areas like understanding the business operations and functions, how the HR understands the internal as well as external business environment and contributes to the core business function. An HR leader must be updated about the business scenario and various internal as well as external factors associated with the same. This will help the HR leader to advise on business strategies. Since HR is a core function of any organization, HR business planning is one of the decisive factors in the organization’s success. They should ensure that the policies and practices they define must be aligned to the organization’s business goals. It actually is a key attribute to make an HR professional an HR business leader.
RELATIONSHIP/COMMUNICATION SKILLS:
HR leaders are in regular contact with different stakeholders. Any HR professionals’ job success underlies his/her ability to maintain relationships and communicate effectively with those stakeholders. Any kind of positive professional relationship/ communication skills means talking things clearly on a positive note, supporting at the time of need, advising when required, and also listening to what others say. It’s a two-way process that helps to build a team with increased trust and dependability. This quality will help HR leaders to develop their teams’ feeling of a better workplace and sense of ownership. This will also promote inclusiveness and equality at the job where everyone will have an open-door policy and issues will certainly get sorted out on time.
CRITICAL EVALUATION:
HR metrics and their critical evaluation is a key competency every HR professional must-have. An HR professional should be able to critically analyze the data/metrics, evaluate the usefulness/effectiveness of any organizational policies/practices, and consider the result. With the modern practices where HR is no more a support function, HR cannot be hypothetical. HR in recent days are asked to make their decisions with supportive data. Hence, critical evaluation of issues, evaluate issues based on data, facts, and figure is a key competency an HR professional must-have. Their ability to critically evaluate the situation will also help the organization on contingency plans for a situation like the Covid-19 pandemic.
GO GLOBAL:
As many multinational companies are already in the country with many more to come in the future, also with many companies with foreign partnerships, an HR leader must have a global approach. Recently many foreign nationals are also working in Nepal. In such a context, a global approach can help an HR leader to adopt global HR practices and define other company policies accordingly. With a diverse workforce, issues like cross-cultural management are also key. Additionally, as the world thrives for new HR practices, one should always be open to learn such new international practices and adopt the one that’s useful. This actually also helps the HR professional to prepare better for the future and design the organizational structure/ practices accordingly. It will not only improve the HR performance but also increase the agility of the organization and makes it a better workplace with more opportunities to learn. It will also create an opportunity where the new tech-savvy generation would find themselves in the right place which will help enhance their work performance efficiency.
These are just a few examples of the key competencies an HR professional must-have. There are many other must-have qualities too. All these competencies actually help to create a better workplace where cohesiveness, inclusiveness, agility, metrics, transparency, ownership, ethics, and efficiency are the key organizational characters. However, as the world moves forward and braces for newer technologies and practices with newer thoughts and work culture, the competencies may also change. Hence, it is extremely important for any HR professional to be open to learn and have the ability to update to adapt to the new situation to be an efficient HR business leader.
Pathak is Senior Manager, Human Resources at IME Motors Ashok Leyland Nepal
